FLY FISHING MARTHA'S VINEYARD; The Long Cast.

Even if the fish are there and even if they would invite you to stay, you can't contact them unless mother nature opens the door. I think some people are kind of surprised that Martha's Vineyard has a rich fly fishing history going back decades and it's not a secret that the state of the striped bass fishery is not, it's not where it needs to be. It's a shame because striped bass are, you know, an everyman's fish. These are not ideal conditions. It's blowing 35. The smoke's come down from Canada. There's a couple other anglers out here but they definitely do not have fly rods. Finding your place is a wonderful gift. Befriending it takes time and work. The physical movement of casting opens fishermen up to the pondering, the evaluating, the remembering, the admitting, the resolving, the planning that comes. So I was working at Trident Fly Fishing doing content marketing and sales for them and it was a great experience. I loved my time there, loved living in Portland, loved working at Trident but I kind of just miss the, I kind of miss working in a brick and mortar fly shop. I've always wanted to run my own fly shop. Abby had made a post of, I guess it's been four years now, you know, needing a shop manager so I reached out to her and we messaged back and forth. I had a couple interviews then she brought me out to the island and just to see if I'd be a fit, just to see you know if I liked it and yeah I've been here for four years now. I think since I've been here I've tried to really emphasize custom tied flies and that's something I'm super proud of. We work with a bunch of local tires, New England tires, so I think we have some of the best flies around and yeah you can find everything from rods, reels, you know, what we call vineyard apparel. I just want Kismet to be a place, you know, dedicated to the hardcore angler but also a place, you know, your average customer can walk in and feel at home and, you know, find supplies that they could go Every year my family makes the trek to Martha's Vineyard. They relax, I catch up with old fishing buddies and chase the elusive July bite. Yeah, literally I just walked in the shop one day and she was in there and, you know, asked her if she would be willing. I've stuck with it ever since. It's been great. I'm Shannon Stafford and we're on Martha's Vineyard. This time of year it would be stripers and bluefish. Hopefully in the next month the bonito and a little bit later the albies will come in and the bonitos are so much fun to catch from shore because they come in really close, you know, as do the striper, although this year's been a little bit of a tougher year for shore fishing. You know, that's the challenge of shore fishing is you pick a spot and sometimes the fish are there and sometimes they're not. While everyone else sleeps, us anglers wake before dawn and drive to what we believe to be the ideal fishing spot based on tides, wind, fishing reports, and luck. What's up dude? See anything? We're on a bar right now. Yeah, as the sun comes up we'll see a little bit. Let's start walking down here. Look at that. That might have been a bass. This is the best time of day, man. What do you have on? This is all of them white fowlers. Classic. What was that? Each part of the season brings something new. In May and early June, spring run, we're throwing big squid flies in the rips during the squid migration. Then those fish kind of move off the rips like, you know, now and we're, you know, they're chasing around sand eels so we're working, you know, we're looking out for turns and blitzing fish. So this comes out to a point here and then basically heads. Is there a deer out here? Could be. I mean it looks like it's hooves. Yeah. Is that a weird little disturbance over there? Yeah. Or is that just the current? Sight fishing to, you know, spooky striped bass, kind of similar to how you would target bonefish in the Bahamas or Mexico. Not seeing any fish yet, but as the morning goes, hopefully we start to see some action on the top of the water. We'll see. The ideal setup for me, if I could have one rod, it would be a nine foot nine way with an intermediate fly line, like something like the Reno Striper Intermediate. It's a great all-around choice. It's a nice community of anglers out here on the vineyard. My friend Shannon's going to meet us too. Hey Shannon, it's good to see you. Great to see you. Crazy, uh, crazy week. We got, it was better than last week. The wind, the fire. Yeah, yeah. Yo, yo, yo. What's up buddy? How are you? I caught a couple out on this bar the other day, sight fishing. You were standing out there? Yeah, but I don't want to, I didn't want to risk it this morning. You can't really see too much. Are we on incoming or outgoing? I don't even know. It should, it should be incoming. I think, uh, roadside was at 445. Okay. It's a little thresher. All right, Stephen's heading out, but we're going to meet up with him over at Kismet Outfitters later today, take a look at the shop and sit down and talk to him about fly fishing on the island. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. My name is Stephen D'Angelo. I'm the shop manager for Kismet Outfitters on Martha's Vineyard. As far as guiding goes, yeah, we offer boat trips, shore trips, paddleboard excursions. Growing up, my dad would like take me up to the mountains of North Georgia, North Carolina on vacation. And yeah, fly fishing was kind of like that next progression. Probably the same story of a lot of fly anglers. Each part of the season brings something new. In early June, spring run, we're throwing big squid flies in the rips during the squid migration, striped bass are keyed in on them. Then those fish kind of move off the rips, like, you know, now. And we're, you know, they're chasing around sand eels. So we're working, we're, you know, we're looking out for turns and blitzing fish. The flats fishing picks up as well. So, you know, like I mentioned earlier, throwing small clousers and shrimp and crab flies and things of that nature. There are several things anglers can do to mitigate the damages done to striped bass. Pinch your barbs for one. I think that's hugely important. If you're fishing from the beach, don't drag them onto the sand. Don't, you know, drag them onto the deck of your boat. Minimize air exposure. And yeah, I think if we do these things, we can greatly reduce striped bass mortality from the recreational side of things. There's not many small schoolies that are in. It's mainly like big fish. Yeah. I mean, I honestly, I'm not a biologist, but what we understand is that the spawns, because they spawn down in the Chesapeake, the stripers are unusual in their anadromous, which means that they live in saltwater, but they spawn in freshwater. So they'll swim up into the estuaries and spawn. And the spawns, I think for the last six or seven years have not been good. And they're thinking it's either climate related, environmental related, or what they're really honing in on is the menhaden. One of the commercial fisheries that makes oil for like dog foods and omega-3 type things. There's a company that's really gone crazy. It's a Canadian company, I think, that's been fishing for a lot of menhaden and doing maybe some overfishing. So we'll see. People are still doing studies to figure out what's going on, but yeah, the fish are much bigger this year than they have been in the past, which is fun, but you do worry about the future and without having a lot of little fish, what that means for the fishery here. Yeah, I've actually given up eating striper. So when I see it on a menu, I won't even order it anymore. You just look at them as your friends now. I want to say thank you for showing me your fishery and welcoming me to the community. And thank you for the beautiful book. She gave me an unbelievable striper book. I'll show you guys later. Thank you for coming out this morning. All right. Thank you for having me out fishing with you. Well, we're going to get one hopefully before Saturday.